Discord kills off opera deal

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A planned new Melbourne opera company appears likely to miss out
on its share of $7.6 million in State Government funding for opera
after a much-publicised merger between two smaller companies
collapsed.

Independent opera companies Melbourne City Opera and the
Melbourne Opera Company announced plans in December to merge under
the new name VicOpera.

The new company appeared destined to benefit from a State
Government funding boost, but the merger has been scrapped.

Chairman of Melbourne City Opera Garry Krauss announced the
union was off on Friday.

"The two companies have worked diligently toward the proposed
merger," Mr Krauss said. "However, it has now become apparent that
for various reasons a merger on equal terms is not possible at this
time."

Mr Krauss declined to elaborate on those "various reasons" other
than to say they were "confidential matters". He would not say
whether they were matters of structure, programming or
personality.

"There were a lot of issues to resolve," he added. "It was a lot
more complicated to bring about the proposed merger than we had
imagined. We worked bloody hard, but in the end we came to a couple
of hurdles that we just couldn't cross."

Mr Krauss said he remained determined for the merger to go ahead
at some stage, but had been instructed by his board that for the
time being it was not possible.

That decision was, "extremely disappointing" to himself and
Melbourne Opera Company chairman Michael Wright.

Mr Krauss acknowledged that the timing was bad. His company and
the Melbourne Opera Company had both made written submissions to
the Government on the matter of opera funding, and had later added
a joint addendum.

The addendum was now irrelevant, he said, though he hoped the
initial submissions of both companies might still stand.

Neither company receives government funding. Melbourne City
Opera, which plans to rename itself VicOpera regardless (it will be
the latest in a long list of names the company has had over its 25
years, including Globe and The Lyric). It spends around $300,000
mounting two or three productions each year. About 50 per cent of
the cost is recovered from ticket sales and the rest from private
sponsorship.

A spokesman for Arts Minister Mary Delahunty said on Friday that
no decision had been made on how the Government would allocate its
opera money. "It might fund a new company, it might fund several
companies, or it might fund individual productions," the spokesman
said.

Nonetheless, the merger of Melbourne City Opera and the
Melbourne Opera Company undoubtedly would have strengthened the
bargaining position of the new company.

And that is something that Mr Krauss knows only too well.

"I am bitterly upset," he said. "The decision was made by the
board on logical grounds, but I think it's a tragedy."